


The Angel of Sonora

by Dash9er



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Desert Keith Week 2018, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 13:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15144101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dash9er/pseuds/Dash9er
Summary: Martie works at a health food store on Highway 85 near the edge of the Sonora Desert. Nothing much worth talking about ever happens there- well, at least not until He comes in: the devastating Angel of Sonora.Mystery and misery surround the young man and Martie is finally going to get the chance to get closer to the enigma, but at a cost.Because, of course, danger is drawn to the Angel, too.





	The Angel of Sonora

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Desert Keith Week's Day One: provisions!

 

 

Martie didn’t exactly  _hate_  her job. That would require too much energy. And here in Why, Arizona during a scorching hot summer, you did anything you could to avoid extra expenditure of energy. She went to work, clocked in and mindlessly moved stock around the store. After working in the same health food store for three years, the mechanics ceased to involve much thinking.

It really wouldn’t be worth it except for the people…people were  _always_ interesting.

Health food stores, as a rule, drew an interesting crowd. There were lots of people who were in trouble health-wise, with alarming stories of medical dead-ends and too much money down the drain. Martie listened to them sympathetically and tried to help steer them down a helpful path. She didn’t lie to them, or sugarcoat anything. Some of this stuff helped people and enough of it did that she was glad to sell it, but it didn’t all work the same for everyone. And health was a tangled web; there was no way to understand in a five-minute conversation everything that influenced that person’s health.

Martie heaved a sigh just thinking about the number of people with arthritis and back pain and knee pain and those trying to get off sugar and carbs and fat foods and prescription drugs and cigarettes…

Seems like everyone needed help.

Then there were the folks that already knew everything. They came in to stock up on their health foods for the week or month, eating nothing but organic, sugar-free, grass-fed, gluten-free, non-dairy foods.  One of her regulars, a 73-year-old man named Wendell ate the same exact diet every day. He hated it, but said he felt so much better that it was worth it.

Martie, who was fifteen pounds overweight and had been that way for twenty years, oscillated back and forth between two opinions. Is it crazier to sacrifice taste for health’s sake or to sacrifice her health for the fleeting joy of taste? Hard to say. Give her another three years and she’d probably have it figured out. ‘Til then, she’d stick with her Snickers bar and Coke breaks.

The WHiF (a.k.a. the Why Health Food store) was one of the first stops on Highway 85 coming in from the Sonora Desert so it drew a plenty of mysterious characters, too. There were more folks than you’d think who lived off the grid and refused basic human interaction, too suspicious of anyone getting into their space. If you engaged them in conversation, they were likely to twist your ear about how the government was spraying chemicals in the air, putting hormones in the water, crafting immunizations that contained poison and taking drastic, mafia-tinged measures to keep all of it out of the media.

Martie knew those folks by sight. Getting involved in a long talk often left her wondering too much about the future of the nation and the ethics in government and who was keeping an eye on all of that stuff and other things which she was  _not_   _equipped_  to think about. What was she expected to do about it if the government was crop-dusting in order to keep the birth rate down?????!!!

And then sometimes, there was someone really interesting who was an  _actual_  hermit—

 _“Oh shiskies._  There he is….” Martie whispered.

“Who?” Carmen said from behind her. Martie had forgotten she was stocking on the same aisle.

“The dusty Angel from Sonora,” Martie answered in a low voice, her eyes following the thin, hunched figure as he grabbed a basket and headed down aisle one. He always came in hot, dusty and in a rush, which did nothing to negate the fact that he was one of the most beautiful people Martie had ever seen. Sigh-causing, life-wrecking beauty. Unfortunately, he was already out of sight.  _Damn._  “I can’t figure him out. How young do you figure he is?”

Carmen turned to her with an “oh” expression. “That’s the guy Matt was talking about yesterday. I’ve never seen him before.”

“What did Matt say?”

“He didn’t call him an angel, that’s for sure.” She lowered her voice. “He said that he smelled bad all the time, sweaty and gross.”

Martie turned back to the shelf to straighten the bottles. “Idiot. What does Matt know about hard work and sweat? I’d love to see him work enough to sweat and stink just a little bit.”

“I know. The other day, he was, like, complaining because the drink cooler in his Mazda wasn’t keeping his drink ice cold. I mean, really?”

“He’s a poodle and this kid is a—”

“Excuse me,” a low, smoky voice said to her left.

Martie jumped and turned to see the Angel himself trying to figure out how to get by the two of them. He was too close to be comfortable, obviously fidgeting and avoiding their eyes. He was dressed suitably in a t-shirt with no neck, sleeves or sides to speak of, worn, cut-off jeans and sneakers. Dust was coating him in a fine sheen, sticking to his sweaty skin.  

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Martie muttered and moved to the other side with Carmen. The young man nodded and slipped by, pausing only to grab a bottle of White Willow capsules. _Ah, headaches._ He left behind the fragrance of clean sweat and dust from the road. What else was a boy supposed to smell like when he lived in the desert and drove a hovercraft?

“Do you need any help,” Carmen said suddenly, her gaze on him sharper.

“No. Thanks,” he muttered as he turned the end of the aisle.   

“Oh my god,” Carmen whispered, staring at Martie with wide eyes, “you didn’t tell me he was  gorgeous!”

“Uh-hmmm. You caught those eyes, right?” Martie smiled and turned back to her job. She was way too old to be excited about a young guy, but it didn’t hurt anything to look. “Never seen anything like them before.”

“Can I check him out, please?”

“The Angel is mine,” Martie tried not to feel guilty as she headed for the register. He only came in once a month or so, and she liked to get at least one good, solid look as his face to see how he was. Something about him worried her.

She fiddled at the register, wiping off the counter and stacking the brochures waiting to be shoved in the bags whether the customers wanted them or not. Could she introduce herself and try to get his name? Nah. He was too jumpy for that. So she’d just call him Angel.

In another minute, he was finished and there, already emptying his basket out before she could greet him.

“How’s your Friday going,” Martie said to open the doomed conversation, picking up his cans of tuna and sliding them over the scanner one by one.

He glanced up with narrowed eyes, giving Martie the full force of his scrutiny.  _Oh, crap_. She withstood his glare as well as she could, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

“That bad, huh?” she drew her eyes back to her work, moving spaghetti sauce and beef jerky across the scanner, quietly resolving not to try to engage him in small talk again if it was always going to result in that look again.

Angel cleared his throat and slumped, leaning against the counter. “No.”

Martie glanced up again and noticed the set of sadness to his mouth, how it tightened and how he bit at his bottom lip. Something was really eating at him. Not for the first time, she wondered why it was that he was always alone. He couldn’t be eighteen yet; looked more like sixteen, and yet he was always on his own buying just enough to get by on and always spending cash. Was no one looking out for him?

She kept scanning items, but caught glimpses of his movements: gloved hands gripping the counter, deep breaths in and out, mumbling something to himself. Carmen, back on aisle three, was watching him raptly.

Resolve crystallized in Martie’s chest. There had to be a way to help him somehow. His jawline was too sharp; he was too thin and nervous and with the way he hid behind his hair and those dark circles under his eyes….

Then, before she could finish her thought, the front door opened behind her.

Honestly, the set-up for the store was stupid; everyone said so. It was something the manager had bemoaned time and time again, but the owner refused to change. For some ungodly reason, or well, probably because the building used to hold a pawn shop, the cash registers were set up so that the person checking out customers had their back to the door. It was awkward for greeting customers and just flat out unsafe, because someone could come in to rob the place and you might never see their face.

Like now.

 _Click._  “Don’t turn around.” Someone large was directly behind her. “Don’t move.” Martie felt something cold and metal nestle behind her left ear. “Don’t nobody move,” the voice said loudly. “If you move, her brains will end up all over this nice cash register here.”

Martie’s brain went black and white, shocked blank. Which was weird. Before this, if you’d asked her what she would be like in a life-threatening situation, she would’ve sworn that hysterics and begging would have been her natural response. Instead, everything got real simple:  _Listen to the voice. Do what it says. There are no other options._

“Everyone down on the floor! Not you,” the voice bit out in her ear, “idiot. Everyone else. You, down. I said,  _down!”_  The spike of anger in his voice caught Martie’s attention and directed it toward the left, where someone wasn’t doing as he was told.

Even before her eyes made the journey, she knew who was causing problems: Angel.

Martie sucked in a breath. With his brow drawn over sharp, venomous eyes, he more resembled a rattler coiling with tension than her melancholy angel. But slowly, he complied, lowering himself to the floor, eyes still fixed on the robber behind her. He looked dangerous as hell.

If she could, she would tell him to stop that, but…gun. She was lucky she was still breathing. Talking was out of the question.

“Now--open the drawer, slowly.”

Martie moved very slowly to the register and hit the NO SALE button. The drawer opened. It was a simple system, easy to get to the money. But it was early in the day and all the drawer had in it was about six hundred dollars. She was praying hard that he couldn’t count.

“Put the money in this bag,” he said as he dropped the bag on the counter. Martie did as she was told, but knew as soon as he started cursing that he had seen how little was in it. “The other register! Get that one, too. There had better be more in there or someone’s going to pay.”

Martie moved to the other register, trying and failing to think of a way out of this. The manager had just taken a deposit to the bank. There was no extra cash anywhere. Grimly, she opened the other register, revealing even less money there.

“Dammit! Where’s the  _cash?”_  the robber said, grabbing her by the neck.

Somehow, she found her voice. “We don’t keep a lot in here. It gets deposited every night…and most people use credit—”

The robber slammed the drawer shut and then slammed Martie’s head into the counter, holding her there. Pain exploded along her forehead and cheek. Then he pressed hard. “I don’t believe you! Where the hell’s the—”

Martie’s head was pounding but then the robber let up, turning away from her, loosening his hold. “Hey,” he barked out, “I told you to—”

 And then her life suddenly became an action movie.

Martie lifted her head just enough to see the Angel of Sonora darting in lightning-fast. The robber was bringing the gun around to shoot him, but the Angel leaped first. Which should have gotten him shot, but somehow, he grabbed and shoved the gun up with one hand so the shot went wide. At the same time, he punched the guy in the face with his other fist hard enough to bring him to his knees.

 _How on earth…?_  

With a simple twist, Angel forced him to drop the gun but didn’t pick it up. Then he decked the robber so hard that he hit the cabinets beneath the register and was knocked flat out.

Martie was still straightening up, feeling her face and the cheek that got slammed into the counter. Her ruthless savior was two steps away, staring down at the robber with a glare heated enough to speak of countless other times the Angel had faced down his demons—maybe losing more often than he had won.

Martie was breathless with awe, and maybe with pain as well.  He had just saved her life. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Angel’s expression changed as he fixed wide-open violet eyes on her, giving her time to see the elegance of his features, the selflessness of his aura and absolutely confirming her nickname for him. “Are you okay,” he asked in a husky voice which somehow sounded much younger than she expected.

“Yes, I’m…I think I need to sit down,” she managed to say before moving awkwardly toward the low section of the counter. She sank down and muttered a prayer of thanks before kicking the robber in the shin, hard. “Asshole.” He was still out.

“I…have to go,” Angel said, looking suddenly uncomfortable in his skin. Sirens were sounding in the distance. Of course, he wouldn’t want to be seen, for the same reason he  _never_  wanted to be seen. Not having cameras here was probably half the reason he shopped here, and over half the reason that jerk of a douchebag had just tried to rob them.

Then Martie had an epiphany, one that she was grateful for forever after. “Oh! Take your food,” Martie blurted out. “I’ll cover it.”

He looked up at her, startled. “I can’t just…”

“Yes, you can.” Martie stepped over the fallen douchebag, maybe kicking him a little as she went, but whatever. Then she bagged Angel’s items, itemizing each one in her mind as she talked. “You saved my life, Angel. Have some frickin’ tuna and jerky on me. I’ll cover it. Now, go!”

She thrust the bag at him and caught a sudden wash of tears in those amazing eyes. Words of gratitude were in there somewhere, but he bit his lip so hard nothing could come out.

“Go on now,” she said gruffly, trying to fight the notion that he needed a hug because she knew that wasn’t something he could accept, obviously. The sirens were close now.

Suddenly, Angel darted forward and closed a hot, half-gloved hand over her own. Then he was gone, before she could get out another syllable of thanks. He’d saved her life and kept this slimebag from taking all their hard-earned cash. She might be crying a little herself.

The robber on the floor groaned when Martie kicked him as she walked back over to sit down. “Shut up. You’re not going anywhere.”

The police were inside seconds after arriving and secured the half-conscious robber. Martie was quick to give credit to her mysterious Angel and was heartily glad not to have a name to give the police, or a very accurate description, really. Carmen tried, but she said his eyes were brown.  _Brown?_ Martie was glad to let that one slide.

As the police led the robber away, Carmen ran over and threw her arms around Martie. “I thought he was going to shoot you,” she sobbed.

“He was going to do  _something_  when he found out how little money we have in the drawers.”

“It was so horrible! And then that guy…he was so wicked. Did you see how fast he moved?”

“I did,” Martie sighed. “What a good boy.”

“He’s  _hot,_  are you kidding me?”

But Martie had looked too deeply in those eyes to feel anything but compassion for him now. He was alone and lonely and barely keeping himself alive. It was easy to see, and difficult at the same time. She had to trust that there was a bigger plan for him in the future, including someone to love him as he so clearly deserved.

If he ever came back… _when_  he came back, there was going to be a line of credit for him. She’d see to it, and pay off whatever he owed. Maybe that would help him, just a little bit.

And she had a feeling that he was going to need all the help he could get.

 

 


End file.
